A Dedicated Man is the second in Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks series. It was originally published in 1988 and it actually seems to date from a few years prior to that in the way it’s written and the cars people drive.
A fairly well liked local man is found dead in the Yorkshire countryside, and it all seems to be related to something that happened in the past.
I’d been holding off reading this book for sometime since it was the second, and I thought I should really try and start at the beginning of the series (the latest hardback has just been published). In fact it doesn’t make a great deal of difference. I suppose the most notable differences I noticed between this novel, and those that come later, is that Bank’s family life is very much on the periphary.
So five books down, nine to go. But I’ve discovered some interesting things looking at Robinson’s website: some of his books have yet to be published in the UK. Cademon’s Song was only recently published in the UK, getting a hardback release in September despite being released originally in 1990. There’s another book, No Cure For Love, which has yet to be published in the UK, and a limited edition book Not Safe After Dark which has short stories including three featuring Inspector Banks. No doubt these will all be published in the fullness of time in the UK under the uniform cover design now used by Pan.